The Cascading: Knights of the Fire Ring

by CW Ullman

Bryce said, “What do you mean, get Dad? Mom’s not here. What are we going to do, ride our bikes?”

  Jordan was still holding the keys to the Volvo station wagon that Drulis had dropped off. He said, “We’ll take the Volvo.”

  “Are you nuts? Who’s going to drive?” Bryce asked.

  “I’ll drive. Dad let me drive once in the parking lot,” Jordan replied.

  Bryce, the calmer of the two, stated, “Look, Mom’ll be home in a minute and she can drive. Besides what are we going to do with Cecily?”

  “Bryce, look what’s going on,” Jordan said pointing at the television. “We can’t wait. We can drop Cecily off at the Rhind’s.”

  Bryce had experienced Jordan’s audacity. He won many surfing competitions because he would ruthlessly snake other surfers, or cut them off from getting a wave. He knew his little brother was hard-nosed when it came to defending people he cared about. Jordan was smaller than his older brother, but got in more brawls. When three surfers were about to tangle with Bryce, Jordan flew at them and ran them off. His granddad used to say there was nothing more powerful than a mind made up, and Jordan’s mind was made up.

  “Okay, I’ll drop Cecily off at the Rhind’s,” Bryce said. While Jordan waited for Bryce to come back, his mind raced. He hoped he could drive the Volvo, he hoped he could find Dad, and he hoped two white boys driving through rioting black neighborhoods did not get stopped. He had seen the white trucker getting beaten in the intersection by black men. Bryce returned to the car and Surgeon jumped in with him. Jordan started the engine, put the car in reverse, and peeled most of the paint off the right side of the car while backing out of the garage.

  “What the fuck, Jordan. I thought you said you could drive,” Bryce yelled.

  “Sorry, sorry. I haven’t driven in reverse before,” Jordan replied.

  As they were paused in the driveway, they saw a blur from the left side of the car run into the driver’s side door. They were initially scared when they saw black hands on the window. Jordan gunned it in reverse, with Bryce yelling, “Stop, stop. It’s Curtis.”

  Curtis went to Jordan’s window and said, “Let me guess? You two are going to find your pop?” They both nodded.

  “Move over, I’ll drive.” Curtis said Darla had called him and told him about Luemveld impending arrival.

  Meanwhile, Charlie was heading down Pacific Coast Highway to Normandie and then east. He had no radio on the motorcycle and knew nothing of the events transpiring ahead. He saw a few police cruisers with their lights flashing, but thought they were speeding to accidents. When the fire trucks passed him, he assumed they were just going to a fire. He did not know that every fire engine, from every station in Los Angeles and surrounding cities, was racing to put out conflagrations that would eventually consume over one thousand buildings.

  Cindy got home from an afternoon with Sam Sweet. She walked into an empty house and stood at the counter where notes were posted to let her know where the kids were. She was about to pick up the phone and call the shop, when she heard a knock on the door. It was the grandmotherly neighbor, Mrs. Rhind, with Cecily.

  “The boys had to leave and brought Cecily over for me to watch. Please don’t tell them I told you, but when they backed your car out of the driveway, they caused some damage. Charlie’s friend, Curtis, thank God, showed up and drove them,” Mrs. Rhind said.

  “Do you know where they were-,” Cindy was interrupted when Molly came blowing through the front door.

  “Mom, turn on the television. LA has just exploded in riots. Darla called to stop Charlie from coming down there, but he already left. He’s on the motorcycle,” Molly said.

  “Why is he headed into Los Angeles?” Cindy asked.

  Molly said she did not know and backed up behind Mrs. Rhind and mouthed the word, ‘Go,’ pointing at the grandmother.

  “Thanks so much for watching Cecily, Roberta,” Cindy said, and Mrs. Rhind left pointing at the TV.

  She asked, while pointing at the rioters on television, “Do you think they’re coming here?”

  “No, I think we’re fine,” Cindy replied as Mrs. Rhind left.

  “Mom, where have you been, I’ve been calling the house all afternoon?” Molly asked while watching the television.

  “I was out shopping,” Cindy lied.

  While they sat in front of the set, Cindy felt guilty about her rendezvous with Sam Sweet. She was going to ask Charlie for a separation because she was tired of lying about her whereabouts. She was not in a marriage as much as an arrangement. When Charlie got back, she would tell him it was over. She was looking forward to her freedom.

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  Wilamena Luemveld had been driving for over a mile without a police escort, the realization dawning on her when she turned down a street and saw an electronics store being looted and her rear view mirror was missing a police car. Frightened, she headed into a residential neighborhood when it appeared the main drag was unsafe, but soon realized she had made a mistake.

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  While most of the twelve million residents of the Los Angeles Basin were terrified, Little Tam Qui knew what he was seeing on television: opportunity. His parents had told him about the fall of Saigon and the killings that followed. They told him that the stores had all been looted. He figured it would not be long before LAPD would be overwhelmed and call a tactical alert. When that happened, they would ask the surrounding police and sheriff’s districts for help. Eventually they would call Orange County Sheriffs, which meant Little Tam Qui would be free to settle scores with local vatos, Mexican gang bangers.

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  As Charlie drove down Normandie getting closer to Florence, he saw more and more people on the streets and thought the crowds unusual for this time of day. He tried to remember if this date held something special for the black community. He stopped at a traffic signal and looked over at a small bodega where men stood near the front door looking at a television. He stooped near the handlebars of his motorcycle trying to catch what was on the screen and only saw the word “King.” He was sure it was not Martin Luther King Day, but then it dawned on him after he had passed El Segundo Boulevard, the four cops who beat up Rodney King must have been found guilty and the locals were celebrating, He drove on feeling proud of himself for figuring out the explanation for the milling crowds, until a white guy came running out of an alley toward Charlie’s motorcycle bleeding from his forehead. He ran in front of Charlie’s bike, forcing him to stop.

  “You got to give me a ride!” Charlie thought he was a bum because his shirt was dirty.

  “Hey, hey. Get off my bike,” shouted Charlie, but the guy had already jumped on the back. Charlie turned to order him off.

  The terrified guy urged, “If you don’t leave right now we’re both dead. They’re going to kill us.” He pointed behind him where fifteen men charged down the street in Charlie’s direction. Charlie was about to ask why they wanted to kill them when he heard gunfire.

  “Hold on,” Charlie twisted the accelerator and sped away from the mob running after him. “Are they shooting at us?”

  “Yeah, they’re pissed about the cops getting off in the Rodney King beating,” his passenger yelled over the sound of the bike engine. Charlie maneuvered through cars and tried to make sense of what he just heard. Did some of the cops get off? Obviously, some had to be found guilty, because he saw endless replays of the taped beating on television for over a year.

  “You mean all four cops got off?” Charlie asked.

  “All four, and black folks are pissed. You and I are in the wrong neighborhood right now; blacks are rioting all over Los Angeles. Somehow you got to turn around, because we’re headed into the teeth of it,” the guy hollered.

  The streets were lined with people hurling objects at them. Charlie’s passenger ducked below Charlie’s helmet to avoid being hit.

  “You just passed 93rd Street. You’ve got to turn down one of these streets and head to the beach,” he yelled.

  “Every stree
t has people blocking the road. I don’t know where to go,” Charlie said. He did not know if he should stop at the traffic signals because he saw men stroll menacingly up and down traffic lanes between the cars.

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  Chief Biwer and Carlos were in the Forum in Inglewood where the Lakers were playing the Portland Trailblzers. Over the public address system they heard, “Ladies and gentleman, we are declaring a police emergency in the city of Inglewood. We request that you exit the parking lots to the east onto Crenshaw Boulevard.” They repeated it again and Carlos told Chief he knew the security staff at the Forum and would find out what was happening.

  The Forum officials had mistakenly directed the crowd toward mobs roaming Crenshaw Boulevard breaking out car windshields and dragging drivers out of their vehicles. Worse, traffic was not moving because broken traffic signals created mile-long traffic jams.

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  The route Charlie was taking was becoming increasingly hazardous. More bottles and rocks were being thrown at the bike and the men on the roadside were becoming more brazen. It got to a point where he could no longer weave between cars because pipe-wielding men were blocking the lanes. Six men approached from the front, so Charlie cut right and headed around a parking lot, behind a line of stores. The six came running down the alley after them, but Charlie was able to find a block of warehouses and darted the bike inside. He went a short distance into the maze of warehouses, where he turned a corner and skidded through a puddle of water, causing the back end of the bike to lose traction. The bike went down, but his passenger was nimble enough to slide clear of a dumpster into which Charlie ran headfirst. The motorcycle’s back wheel was still spinning, when the guy ran over to help Charlie up. Charlie had slid between the dumpster and the wall and had been knocked unconscious.

  “Hey, buddy, wake up. Wake up,” the guy hollered, but Charlie did not respond. “Fuck it,” the guy said.

  He took off Charlie’s helmet and coat, put them on, and decelerated the bike throttle. After righting the bike, he jumped back on and sped back down the alley, only to be met by the gang he had tried to elude. To his right was a chain-link fence that he managed to get through as the six went after him into an enclosed field. Another fifteen men followed, and all of this misfortune was being captured on camera from a hovering news helicopter overhead. A beam of light shone on the motorcyclist, who managed to stay just out of the reach of the crowd. Two hundred thousand viewers were watching this scene unfold on television.

  One of those viewers was on their knees in front of the television. She yelled, “Mom, Mom, that’s Charlie, isn’t it?” Her mother was on the phone, but at Molly’s call, ran into the room. She watched in horror, recognizing the Girl’s Eyes logo clearly visible in the camera shot.

  “What are they doing? He didn’t do anything,” she began screaming at the set. “Leave him alone.” Molly was voiceless with a fear that prevented her from crying. With her hands covering her face, she watched the man she believed to be Charlie speed away from the crowd until he was cornered in the lot. The men descended upon the motorcyclist with pipes and two by fours, while one man from the mob raised his hands in gang signs and another began shooting at the helicopter.

  The pilot told the station they were receiving gunfire and needed to take evasive action. The picture turned back to the news anchors, who commented on what had just happened. Cindy, in shock, feebly hugged the equally shocked Molly, who finally burst into tears.

  The phone rang and Molly answered, hoping somehow she would hear Charlie’s voice. Cindy sat on the couch waiting for the television to say the person attacked had been rescued. On the phone Molly heard Charlie’s mother imploring to be told that the man she had just seen on television wearing the Girl’s Eyes helmet was not Charlie. Because Molly could not utter a word, she heard Colleen shriek and the phone dropped to the floor.

  Chris picked up the phone and asked, “Molly, is your mom there? Can you put her on?”

  Molly looked over at her mother who had slid to her knees on the floor, still waiting for the screen to speak of the man’s safety. Molly said she would have to call him back.

  “Do you have the boys there?” Chris asked.

  “They’re with Curtis trying to find Charlie,” Molly said.

  Chris hung up and picked up his wife. He sat her on the couch and held her as she cried. He wanted to leave to find his family, but he could not abandon Colleen who shook with sobs. He closed his eyes and murmured a prayer for God to protect his family.

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  “Can you get Surgeon away from my ear?” Curtis said, as he drove deeper into Los Angeles. Surgeon was between the front seats panting about six inches from Curtis’s head. Curtis had taken the same route as Charlie, but by the time they had driven close to Normandie, more people were out on the street and there were more fires. The Volvo was stopped six cars short of a traffic signal at Manchester and Normandie. Men roamed between the cars with pipes in their hands.

  Curtis, Bryce and Jordan watched as two men beat the car in front of them. One of them stood on the hood of the car and pounded the windshield, while another hit the driver’s side window. The man on the side broke through the window, pulled up the door lock, and dragged a woman out of the car. As they watched, the automobile behind the Volvo rammed the rear of it and pushed the Volvo into the woman’s car. The car behind them backed up, rolled up on the sidewalk, and drove off. The skirmish involving the woman and men in front of the Volvo stopped when the Volvo was shoved into her car. The men let go of the woman, who ran off in the direction of a store, freeing the thugs to come after the Volvo.

  They looked at Curtis and yelled. When they saw Bryce and Jordan, they tried to open the doors. Surgeon barked and leaped at the window, scaring one of them away. Curtis shoved the gearshift into reverse and backed up into a car that was ten feet behind. He threw it into drive and bounced up on the sidewalk with one of the assailants holding onto the surf racks on top of the car. Curtis ran the car up against a pole, knocking the man free of the Volvo. He drove over a lawn filled with men who scattered. While crossing the lawn, the car was hit with a flaming bottle that exploded gasoline onto the side of the car. The fire spread down to the rear tire. Curtis drove free of the yard and headed down a residential street. Gangs roaming the street threw bricks at the flaming Volvo. They turned a corner and drove deeper into the neighborhood. Surgeon barked constantly and the boys sank down into their seats. The inside of the car was filling with smoke and Curtis knew they had to abandon the vehicle, but where could he stop? In every direction he looked there were men holding weapons in their hands. If they opened the windows, someone might pull them out of the car. He had to make a decision soon because they were running out of time.

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  Wilamena Luemveld was driving, screaming, and crying. She had driven into a neighborhood and turned down one street after another where people threw whatever they had in their hands at her car. Because she had jumped a number of curbs, she had flattened the front passenger tires. The sun had set and both of her headlights had been broken out. The windshield had been hit with something that smeared across it, making it difficult to see. She was finally able to stop with no one around and catch her breath. She cursed the cops who had deserted her and pledged that when she got back to the office she would report them to their superiors. While she composed the reprimand, two men hit her car with bricks, causing her to hit the throttle and accelerate forward on the flat tires. She eluded them, drove three more blocks and then turned down a street where the car finally died. She attempted to start it, but the engine would not turn over. She looked through the smudged windshield into the darkness and saw no one. She slowly got out of her car and looked around. She hunched over with her hands on her knees and took a deep breath. When she stood back up she heard men’s voices and turned around to see a gang of young males turning the corner. Looking in the opposite direction for an escape, her shoulders sagged, she teared up, and her knees shook when she
realized she was in a cul-de-sac.

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  Curtis turned a corner down a street lined with houses and nice yards. There were trees and most important, no one was around.

  “Okay, everybody out,” Curtis ordered. He walked around the side where the fire had burned and saw the tire had burned thin. It was hissing air and would be flat in minutes. The boys were standing next to him and Surgeon was pacing back and forth, snorting.

  “What are we going to do?” Jordan asked.

  “We have to get off the street before somebody discovers us,” Curtis replied.

  “We can’t go back that way,” Bryce observed pointing in the direction they had just come.

  “Follow me,” Curtis said.

  He walked across a sidewalk, through a gate and up a pathway to the front door of a house. He knocked on the door and waited a few moments. When there was no answer, he tried again.

  “Maybe nobody’s home,” Jordan said. “I wish I had Dad’s gun right now.”

  “Really? What would you do with it?” Bryce said.

  “I’d go Wyatt Earp on those guys,” Jordan said.

  “I’ve seen you shoot and you couldn’t hit water falling out of boat,” Bryce rejoined.

  “Ok, you two keep it down. Hello, is anybody home?” Curtis said to the door.

  Curtis was startled when he heard a voice on the other side of the door, “Get off my porch before I blow you away.” It was an elderly man speaking, followed by the voice of a woman arguing with him.

  “I’ve got a shot gun trained right at you and I’ll blow you and your gang in half, by God,” the old man said.

  The elderly woman’s voice became clearer, “Blow away with what, the umbrella? Get away from the door, you old fool, and let me open it.”

  The old man says, “ I got two pit bulls in here and they will tear you up. You better get off my porch if you know what’s good for you.”

  “Get away from the door before I tear you apart,” said the old woman as she opened the door. She stood on the other side of a heavy metal screen door. She was a little over five feet tall and was backed up by her husband who was holding a closed umbrella.